iji - Automatically
$10.00 - $20.00
iji - Automatically
$10.00 - $20.00
Automatically, new soundwaves and poetic clarity emerged from the tenured, West Coast, DIY sophisti-pop group iji. Songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Zach Burba has led the iji band for more than 15 years, circling the USA on self-booked tours with revolving lineups of passionate instrumentalists in tow. Countless records, CDs, and tapes exist documenting eras of iji as they contributed to music communities of former hometowns, Phoenix, AZ, Seattle, WA, and now, Los Angeles, CA. Burba has also lived a fruitful life as a musical side-guy, contributing to records by Dear Nora, Mega Bog, Your Heart Breaks, and the new Big Thief produced album by living legend, Tucker Zimmerman. Automatically finds iji in its most stripped-down and direct form yet, centering the songs on what matters most - melody, poetry, schemes, and dreams. Burba’s tunes take swings at the big and little pictures, riding the surreal highway that connects them, with musings on late capitalism, gentrification, community, psychic phenomenon, existential dread, language failure, childhood dreams, and dwindling friendships. The record was made in collaboration with friends, James Kirvchenia, Adrianne Lenker, and Max Oleartchik of Big Thief, Erin Birgy and Aaron Otheim of Mega Bog, Katy Davidson of Dear Nora, Nicholas Krgovich of Nicholas Krgovich, Luke Csehak, Tara Milch and Michael Sachs from the Lentils, and Mike Sherk of Mandarin Dynasty.
Automatically is the first record from iji since relocating to Los Angeles in 2020. Throughout the pandemic, Burba made an effort to sit with the trouble and focus a gaze both inward to the shadowy depths, and outward into the writhing world at large. The intersection of pandemic isolation and unemployment payments for musicians created a pause from day jobs and tour life that allowed Burba to reflect on what was worth saying. “I experienced a steady flow of inspiration once I stopped and listened for it. I had never before felt such conviction to speak as I did while writing these songs. Ideas came to me from every direction. Entire songs would unroll like scrolls before my eyes on a walk, ‘Silverlake Flames’ came to me this way. One song came in a dream where I watched an older, balding version of myself playing my hit song from long ago called ‘She Sees’.” iji music in the past frequently reveled in abstract poetic license, but Automatically feels like a whole new world of purposeful communication. The album’s opening track “Onomatopoeia” begins with the lyric, “I want to take it all back, every line ever spoken.” What’s been said before doesn’t stand to Burba’s ever-shifting standard of lyric, and the 11 tracks of Automatically lay the message bare for all to comb.
Sonically, Automatically traverses new calmer, acoustic terrain for iji. The music is crisp and clean, centered around Burba’s mellow, nylon-stringed guitar playing and Krivchenia’s inspired drum thumpery. Phil Hartunian engineered the songs from his Tropico Beauty studio in Glendale, providing some vintage warmth and tape hiss that seats the music in a timeless cozy pocket. However, unlike many Los Angeles contemporaries, iji’s music is not based in nostalgia for any particular era. Burba is not interested in sonically dressing up as his favorite songwriters of yesteryear (though you may admittedly hear hints of Peter Ivers, Arthur Russel, and Prefab Sprout). Automatically instead comes fresh in its juxtaposition of sounds and ideas, contemporary, eccentric, overlooked, tried, and/or true blue.
For a while, Burba flirted with the idea of releasing the album under a new band name. Several appearances around LA and NYC in ’21 and ’22 featured Burba and backing billed as Zacy’s, Zacy’s Auto Repair, and Zacy’s featuring iji. Eventually, they decided to simply stay the iji path. Burba explained “iji was always intended to be a forever project, that’s one of the meanings behind the ‘…’ ellipses embedded within the band name. It was for that reason that it felt so powerful to imagine defying my young self and pulling the plug, and then, likewise, it felt equally amazing to recommit to the continuation."
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